TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has written off...

TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has written off the possibility of developing the company’s recent Tamboti-1X oil discovery offshore Namibia, aview described as possibly premature by exploration sources contacted byUpstream.

2025-02-06 16:01 ‘Game over’: TotalEnergies chief says recent Namibia oil find is not commercial | Upstream
https://www.upstreamonline.com/exploration/-game-over-totale… 1/
This ultra-deepwater probe was drilled by the semi-submersible rig Deepsea Miraat a location north of the French player’s huge Venus discovery — which is underdevelopment — and close to its earlier Mangetti discovery.
Before drilling, Pouyanne indicated the well was targeting a potential 1 billion-barrel resource,
with Upstream reporting the well was tested in late January
.
Speaking to analysts on Wednesday, Pouyanne dismissed out-of-hand thatTamboti could be a commercial discovery, saying the well results were “not good”and that it “cannot” be tied back
to a planned fl oating production, storage andoffl oading vessel on Venus
.
“It’s game over on Tamboti. There is no commerciality, to be clear. We cannotthink to connect Tamboti to Venus,” he said at the company’s fourth-quarterresults and 2025 outlook call.
Nicolas Terraz, the supermajor’s upstream head, confi rmed Tamboti-1X hit oiland a test was carried out.
However, he said while the well did flow, its permeability “was lower than at Venus” where it ranges between 2 and 4 milliDarcies (mD).
Pouyanne pointed out that the permeability numbers for Tamboti are closer tothose “written off by some of our colleagues,” a reference to Shell’s nearbydiscoveries, including Jonker, whose reservoir permeability is about 0.7 mD.
Pouyanne said his exploration team knew about the permeability risk before drilling Tamboti because results from a Venus appraisal well in this area alsoshowed signs of reservoir “degradation.”
“We wanted to drill it because it was a sizable prospect, but the petrophysics arepoor.”
Privately-owned Impact Oil & Gas, one of TotalEnergies’ partners, said Tamboti-1X was drilled to a total measured depth of 6450 metres in block 2913B, about 12kilometres northeast of
the Mangetti-1X discovery well
and 25 kilometresnorth-northwest of the
Venus-2A appraisal well

Impact said the probe hit “black oil” in 85 metres of net reservoir comprising“lower quality Upper Cretaceous sandstones belonging to the Mangetti fansystem.”
The company said a drill stem test was carried out – Upstream was told it fl owedbelow 1000 barrels per day, with data from logs, cores and the DST currentlybeing analysed.
Chief executive Siraj Ahmed said: “…with further analysis of the Tamboti-1Xresults underway, the outcome of this well, within the northern region of block2913B, highlights the potential of Namibia’s deep offshore play.”
Partly countering TotalEnergies’ narrative, an informed exploration source saidTamboti-1X “wasn’t a bad well — it contains plenty of oil,” adding that the“Mangetti-Tamboti prospect still appears to contain signifi cant volumes.”
Another knowledgeable source said that although Tamboti is “not asstraightforward as Venus, there’s still work being carried out on it.”
Well watchers argued that fracking and, maybe, horizontal drilling could helpboost fl ow rates.
“There’s no guarantee… it is commercial,” said one source about Tamboti, butsuggested that it is perhaps not yet “game over” for the discovery.
The supermajor’s boss said TotalEnergies now knows the northern and westernlimits of good quality reservoirs in its blocks 2913B and 2912, adding that he wasnot surprised the
Chevron’s recent Kapana-1X probe
in a block directly north ofTamboti was unsuccessful.
“We are not surprised the neighbour in the north did not make any discovery. It’squite consistent.”
Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth told analysts last week that despite Kapana’s failure: “We continue to be interested; we’re very pleased with the information welearned; it helps us understand the geological history of that part of the basin —how the depositional structures and geology evolved.”
He was speaking during the company’s fourth-quarter call and also highlightedthat Chevron also holds a fronter block in Namibia's Walvis basin.